Duty is the Rope
by wordslinger
Summary: On any other day, and for any other purpose, he'd never have considered the cathedral as a place to conduct such bloody business. Igneel had a soft spot for the children. Part 1 of In Fair Verona. Complete.


_**Note: So... I hope this works. I like it a lot. Igneel and Anna kinda stole my heart in The Fall of Mercutio and I'm not quite done with them but this is a good start.**_

* * *

The cathedral had always been his haven. Especially as a scrappy little boy with no better way to fill his afternoons than in service. Every day after school Igneel tore through the back streets of Magnolia to get from the school doors to the ones of the church. On his way he passed the heavy and ornately carved doors of Saint Fabrizio's Academy. He'd never set foot inside the building and often wondered what it must be like to spend one's whole day in the arms of the faith. Igneel hadn't the funds to find out. Neither he nor his sister would ever find out – not that Eileen cared about any of those things. She didn't share his passion for the cloth and all its tactile and mental escapism. She had her own ways and means.

Even as a grown man, Igneel still felt the soft hands of the Lord's house cradle him every time he set foot inside Kardia Cathedral. On any other day, and for any other purpose, he'd never have considered the cathedral as a place to conduct such bloody business. He preferred to keep his exposure limited to Midnight Mass on Christmas. Igneel could keep his hands clean on that one day at least.

A head of unmistakable hair caught his eye. Zeref blended in more than his brother which was probably for the best given the circumstances. The boy with him was nothing but a scrawny thing with wide eyes and a stuffed blue cat in his arms.

"Thanks for coming," Zeref muttered, not taking his eyes off the chancel and altar within it. "I don't know what else to do."

Igneel took a seat beside the younger boy and sighed. The voices of the young choir members practicing their hymns drowned out Zeref's hushed words.

"I can't help you," he said, leaning forward and resting his folded hands on the pew in front of him.

"But –"

"The kid, on the other hand, I can do something about."

"I can't leave my brother," Zeref hissed. "He's too small! He can't look after himself."

"He's your blood," Igneel countered, still not looking at Zeref. "You're of a durable type."

"She wants to send me away. Somewhere north. Crocus maybe."

Igneel nodded. Of course Madame Grandeen would send Zeref away. It would be exactly her style. He knew it well. Probably better than anyone else.

"I said I could help the little one and I will. I don't go back on my word, Zeref, but I have concerns."

"Like what?" Zeref snapped.

"Does she know about the boy? Madame Grandeen isn't the type to let debt slide. For her, everything is generational. Your debt is the kid's debt. Understand?"

"I –" Zeref paused and Igneel could feel the horror in his silence. "She knows."

"This complicates things."

 _"How?_ You own half this city! Your dragons are everywhere. I see them in every shadow. How is keeping one kid out of the hands of a predator like Grandeen complicated for someone like you?"

"I'm surprised you'd address her so casually," Igneel said with the tiniest of smirks.

"Cut the shit."

"It was one thing for me to hide a kid she didn't know about. But, as you've just said, she _knows._ She'll come after him eventually. She doesn't forget things." Igneel's own memories danced backward to flashes of crimson hair and blood and cut skin. Things lost to him. Things he couldn't get back. "If you want me to protect your kid brother, I can. It's just more work now."

"Everybody wants a piece of me," Zeref whispered. "I don't have much left. I just want to protect my brother and get out from under her books."

"That we can do." Igneel leaned back in the pew and glanced down at the little boy beside him who still clutched at the stuffed blue cat. His eyes were glued to him and Igneel didn't doubt for a second he understood the gravity of the day. "You're right about being sent away. She'll pack you off to Crocus where nobody will know you or your name. They'll clean you up and you'll do all your work on your stomach or back or maybe your knees. Who knows?" The cruel words came easy but Igneel hated them. "You can't ever come back. If you want the little one safe, you can't come back."

"But how will I know –"

"You'll have my word." Igneel finally pierced Zeref with a stare. "Is that enough?"

"It is."

Igneel nodded and stood. He slid his hands in his pockets and left the brothers in the pew. The path to the altar was a familiar one. A solo soprano voice echoed off the walls and high arch of the apse. Igneel lit two candles. One for a boy whose name he had yet to learn and one for a girl he'd lost many years before. He only ever said her name in his head but today he whispered it.

" _Ellie."_

Once he'd added his prayers to the many, Igneel spun on his heel and made for the doors. The little boy was now alone in the pew. Igneel held out his hand and slowed his pace. A smaller hand slid into his and together they left the church behind.

* * *

In hindsight, Igneel wondered if he'd taken his own wishes about his father to heart, would his sister have been so endangered? Maybe if he'd sought out less fanciful employment, he'd have made more money and been able to claw their way out of their father's debts. Such thoughts were toxic but he couldn't help them.

Madame Grandeen never left her pillow house on the edge of Dragon Slayer territory. Not anymore. Not since Igneel pulled his busted body to the top of the pile of other busted bodies. Did she fear his retribution? Maybe. Maybe not. He didn't actually care to find out. Igneel would tolerate the drugs and the booze. He might've even let go of his grudge against her beds and bodies for sale if he didn't know the truth.

Igneel had a soft spot for the children. He'd been in her trenches – her beds. He'd been the boy with the rust colored hair and golden eyes trying to keep her gaze from wandering to his sister. Eileen was too flamboyant and beautiful to ignore, though. Too beautiful to stay that way. Madame Grandeen had a way of ruining beautiful things. She draped herself in snow white furs and glided through the hallways of her houses wrapped in curls of cherry flavored tobacco smoke. The walls were always covered in the most decadent silk papers and designs but her smoke would eventually rot them away. He would see to it that all of Madame Grandeen's influences were scorched from the soil the city sat on.

Natsu was a blessing. Igneel loved him as any father might love his own child. He brought him to his house on the edge of Heartfilia territory and created a world within a world. A world where the boy could be safe. Igneel knew better than anyone that no place was ever _completely_ safe so he told himself he'd arm his son with knowledge. He wouldn't keep secrets. Not like his father had. Igneel's father had a graveyard full of secrets that rose as vicious ghosts the moment he died. Natsu would _know_ where the monsters hid. He'd never be caught by surprise.

Zeref disappeared from the streets of Magnolia just as Igneel suspected he would. He wasn't glad for it. Igneel was never glad when motes were swept under Madame Grandeen's rugs. A full year had passed by the time a man with a dragon's tail curling around his left wrist brought news of Natsu's name being whispered from lips painted angel pink. Igneel saw nothing but red. The same crimson red of Ellie's hair. The same color of blood spilled from somewhere deep within the heart.

Taking out her smaller pillow houses was a cinch. Igneel didn't even leave his warehouse. In a concentric circle, the Dragon Slayers closed in on Madame Grandeen. One hit after another, her prizes were ripped from her grasp. Igneel loved every second. This explosion was for his mother. That one for his father. The day he walked into her pillow house at five-oh-four Birch Avenue for the fist time in many years he had a picture of Eileen in his head. Her screams echoed in his ears and her hair mingled with the sprays of blood until everything was painted crimson. When he reached Madame Grandeen's office, his thoughts were solely on Natsu.

She watched him from her chair beside the fireplace, her white furs glowing etherially in the low light. Her silver tipped fingernails slid through tufts of hair so black and so familiar Igneel was almost startled. _Almost_ but not quite. Even though he'd assumed Zeref gone, a part of him had always known better. She smiled at him with the palest pink lips he could never forget.

"I'm so glad you could come," she said in a clear voice that hadn't changed at all. "You just can't get away, can you, Igneel?"

"Bold words for a woman on her last leg."

"Is this my last leg? You misunderstand my intentions. I _will_ have what's mine."

"It's always the same with you," Igneel said slowly, closing the door behind him. "Always calculating. Always working things out. Don't you ever get tired?"

"Spite preserves me. I'm surprised you haven't learned that lesson yet. I would let this whole city burn just to clutch what's mine to my chest as I leave the rubble behind."

"What's a prize worth if you haven't a place to put it?"

"Do you think Magnolia is the be all, end all of me? I'm surprised at you, Igneel. Surely you aren't that short sighted." She smiled and it was a painful thing to see. "Ask your sister who pays for her daughter's dresses."

"My sister –"

"Is a woman who knows who and what she is. She knows the extent of her worth." Madame Grandeen's fingers tightened around the tufts of Zeref's hair between them. "She knows when to ask and when to say thank you. She knows when to shut the fuck up and get on her back." She sighed laboriously. "Something you never learned. Zeref here is much better than you ever were. Such a good listener."

Igneel's lips flattened into a line. His eyes fell to Zeref who's expression remained blank. Whatever the boy had done to earn Madame Grandeen's ire, his debt went deep. Natsu never stood a chance of escape.

"He's also an astonishing talker. So many words."

"I'm not here to play this game. I don't care about your numbers or your books or whatever you think you're owed. I'm here to draw a line."

Madame Grandeen laughed. It was a throaty laugh and possibly the most genuine sound he'd ever heard from her in the whole of his life. "Do you think that because you command a horde of dragons now that I'll get on my knees for you? For _you?_ " She stood and jerked Zeref's hair away from her roughly. "You're nothing to me. You're just a man."

Igneel never could decide what exactly the tipping point had been. The building suddenly shook and shuddered around them and an explosion stole all the breath in the room. Madame Grandeen's screams filled his ears more fully than Eileen's ever had. Perhaps it was the proximity, perhaps the sick pleasure he took in her suffering – he didn't know. Her white furs were engulfed in flames and melted around her. Behind her, Zeref's eyes were blacker than his hair. He dropped the burning bits of fire log to the floor and ignited the rug. The building rattled again and support beams creaked.

Madame Grandeen shrugged off her charred furs and flung them away from her as she bolted from the room screaming and tearing at the remainder of her burning clothes and ruined skin. Half of her stole was caught by Zeref's body and he didn't seem to be bothered considering his hands were already burned severely. The front flap with the clasp flew at Igneel's neck and the hot metal seared his already scarred skin. He felt the melted skin stick to the clasp as he tore it away. Igneel whirled around to give chase but the doorway and hall beyond collapsed with bits of wall and curling shreds of silk wallpaper.

"Natsu," a voice behind him croaked. Igneel turned back to Zeref who's body now crackled and peeled the same as the wallpaper. "He's safe?"

Igneel crossed the office in four strides and tore the drapes from the east facing window. Outside the smoke choked the street below. He grabbed Zeref in a bundle of curtains and pushed him to the floor not covered by smoldering rugs.

"He's safe."

"Good," Zeref coughed. "Is she gone?"

"She won't make it out of the building alive. Everything is collapsing." Igneel's jaw flexed irritably. "I'll need to have a word with my arsonist about timing."

"You're funny," Zeref muttered, his eyes threatening to close. "I took something earlier. Something she had in a drawer."

"What?" Igneel demanded.

"It doesn't hurt. The fire, I mean. When I touched it, I felt fine."

 _"Fuck,"_ Igneel grunted. The situation had spiraled out of his control and he hated not having control. He really would need to have a word with his fire starter. A chunk of the floor above fell through the office ceiling and black smoke billowed into the room. Zeref's eyes were closed and his breaths shallow.

"Natsu," he whispered again.

Igneel made a choice. He left Zeref's side and lobbed a chair through the window. Glass glittered in the moonlight and showered the street below. When he turned back to Zeref, the drapes were already in flames.

He left his misgivings and regrets in the broken building and leapt from the window alone.

* * *

Natsu was fifteen when he wanted his own dragon. Igneel thought maybe he'd been too optimistic in hoping the boy would never ask. He was a wild child who thought with his heart and not with his head. Sometimes Igneel wondered if maybe he loved Natsu too much.

In the end he supervised the tattoo himself. The body of the beast was a familiar rust color and his claws a bright gold. They didn't keep secrets, Igneel reminded himself. Natsu's armor was knowledge and understanding.

He cautiously asked about Zeref once and Igneel answered only the questions posed. The boy seemed content with the simple answers and even called him _dad._

* * *

Officer Milkovich was young. In a lot of ways she reminded him of Ellie. Shrewd and fiercely independent. The first time they crossed paths, she'd glared at him. Igneel knew if she'd had her druthers, he'd be in handcuffs. He didn't know if it was guilt for enjoying her frustration so much or just a desire to make things _better_ but he started feeding her choice bits of information. In exchange, she glanced over the top of the Dragon Slayers' movements in the city. Igneel had a good deal of respect for law enforcement and Ur Milkovich understood grey areas.

"I heard about your husband," he said from just beyond the shadows. "Sorry."

"He was mostly useless anyway. I'm lucky to keep my job."

"I can see how it might reflect badly on you as an officer of the law." Igneel laughed softly and emptied his lungs of smoke. "For what it's worth, I think you're the most valuable officer on the force."

"Thanks," she muttered. "I'll pass that along to my lieutenant."

Igneel watched the cherry of his cigarette flare. "I've been hearing things lately."

"There's lots to hear."

"Heartfilia things. The old lady is dead and I've seen some… ripples."

Ur sighed and if he didn't know better he'd have offered her a smoke. "There's been some gossip, yeah. The line of succession, if you will, didn't go as some had anticipated."

"I've had some wind of money troubles. There's been some questions asked and brains picked."

"I wouldn't know anything about that."

"I'm sure."

"This is all your territory, Dragneel. I only get the drunk tank gossip. You're the one peddling the good stuff."

"It's a step up from from old man Dreyar peddles," Igneel said with a laugh. Officer Milkovich snorted and he heard her keys rattle in her pocket.

"It's late. I need to get home to my girl. Thanks for the tip on Raven Tail. Keep your guys clear of the restaurant district tomorrow." She paused before leaving. "Listen, I heard something yesterday that might interest you."

"Pray tell," Igneel said, stomping out the spent cigarette with the sole of his shoe.

"I shouldn't be telling you at all because it's an open investigation and not even my jurisdiction –"

"Spill it or can it, Milkovich. We don't have all night."

"There's a name floating around up in Crocus. Belserion. He's on a vice watch list, apparently."

"And?"

"Four days ago a body was found wrapped in white mink. She'd been cut to shreds."

Igneel's heart thudded in his chest. His breaths were shallow. _Could it… really?_

"Anyway, they traced her back to Magnolia. She used to run the sex trade here but disappeared maybe ten years ago." Ur paused and Igneel waited for her to continue. The woman could be frustratingly plodding sometimes. "Look, you and me, we went to school together, okay? I know about… stuff. I _know._ This Belserion guy is looking good for the murder."

"Take your time," he whispered, balling his hands in his pockets.

"He's got a wife."

Igneel's insides froze. The slash and dash. The white mink. _Crocus._

"I think – I _know_ it's Eileen. I'm… I'm not trying to dig up old shit, Igneel," Ur's words were choppy as if they didn't quite fit in her mouth. "I'm just letting you know."

Igneel stayed in his shadow until he heard her car start up and the puff of exhaust lingered in the air.

* * *

It wasn't until _she_ showed up at the front door of his _home_ that Igneel fully conceptualized the circle closing. She needed his help.

Igneel hadn't ever been very good at telling Anna Heartfilia _no._


End file.
